Classified Document In Kiefer Case May Mean There Is More To Story

March 01, 1986|by DAVID M. ERDMAN, The Morning Call

The existence of a classified White House document in the case of Mark Kiefer of Allentown has led Kiefer's father to suspect there is more to the U.S. and Cuban governments' stories on his son's disappearance near Cuban waters three years ago.

The White House document is noted in a letter Kiefer's father, John, received this week from the U.S. Department of State, denying access to the document and four other government papers. The denial was in response to a request made under the Freedom of Information Act for all Department of State correspondence on the Kiefer case.

Kiefer's father charged yesterday that the existence of the White House document "proves there is more information about my son that the government is withholding.

"If there is more than meets the eye," said Kiefer, "I am going to find it out, because this is my son and I love him."

A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Don Ritter, R-15th District, who was closely involved in attempts to trace Mark Kiefer's whereabouts, said the news of classified documents raises suspicions about the U.S. and Cuban governments official versions of the missing Kiefer child.

"Obviously there is more to the story than even we realize," said John Kachmar, Ritter's chief aide. Kachmar will attempt to obtain the documents, he said, although he cautioned it is possible the information in the documents may have been classified for reasons not directly related to the Kiefer case.

It was three years ago this week that Kiefer, a crew member of the fishing boat Sea Lure, was reported drowned off the Florida Keys when the boat wrecked in a violent storm Feb. 26, 1983. Kiefer's body has never been retrieved.

In the letter received by Kiefer, the Department of State said 21 documents on the Kiefer case have been retrieved in response to the Freedom of Information Act request. Only one document was released in its entirety. Fifteen more were released with the omission of classified information. But those papers released contained information already known by the Kiefer family, including tips that led the family to believe their son might have been secretly held in a Cuban prison.

Another four papers, however, according to the letter, "must be withheld from release." The letter stated:

"One was found to be a White House document and thus not subject to the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act)." The letter states that other information was omitted from the released documents "in the interest of national defense or foreign policy," a procedure not uncommon in Freedom of Information requests. The letter also stated, " . . . that the release of four documents must be denied in full . . . as their release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy."

The letter has aroused new suspicions for John and Barbara Kiefer that their son is secretly being held in a Cuban prison and did not drown in a violent storm south of Florida, as information from various sources has indicated. Kiefer has spent the last year trying to resign himself that his son, an outstanding Allen High School football player, may be dead. Kiefer said he began to give up hope last year when Ritter, through a personal contact with Cuban President Fidel Castro, was told that Mark Kiefer was not secretly being held in Cuba.

The revelation of the classified government documents, however, "opens a whole new can of worms," Kiefer said. "This makes me feel, when am I going to get justice for this?

"I had some of the big guns out looking for my son and I was told there was nothing else that could be done," Kiefer said of the involvement of Rev. Jesse Jackson in the search for his son.

Jackson, who had negotiated the release in January 1984 of U.S. Navy Lt. Robert Goodman, who was shot down over Syria, contacted Cuban officials on the Kiefers' behalf. Jackson, then a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, was told that neither Kiefer nor two other missing crew members were being held in Cuban jails. During the family's search for their son, they learned from the widow of Gregory Stimpson of Orlando Fla., one of the Sea Lure's crew members, that a Cuban refugee reported seeing Stimpson in a Cuban jail.

Kachmar said he will attempt to either obtain the documents or obtain a summary of their contents. Under federal regulations governing the handling of classified documents, Kachmar or Ritter could be subject to the same restrictions as Kiefer in attempts to learn the contents of the classified papers.